Think About This for a While

Stolen from Maetenloch's Overnight Open Thread :

'But the revelatory fact that takes a while to sink in is this: You had to be a millionaire to have one. The phone cost the equivalent of nearly $10,000, it cost about $1,000 a month to operate, and you couldn't text or play Angry Birds on it. When the first DynaTac showed up in a movie - it was Sixteen Candles, a few years before Wall Street - it was located in the front seat of a Rolls-Royce, which is where such things were found 25 or 30 years ago. By comparison, an iPhone 5 is a wonder, a commonplace miracle.

My question for the students is: How is it that the cell phones in your pockets get better and cheaper every year, but your schools get more expensive and less effective? '